How much dancing did Natalie Portman do? This has been a question circling around Black Swan since the Oscar nominations came out. We covered it here. The controversy died down after Portman won the Oscar. Well, it’s heated up again thanks to dancing double Sarah Lane telling the Wall Street Journal that she did “basically all the dancing”. The studio stands behind Portman. But no one ever believes a studio. However now someone has spoken up that people are likely to believe.

Here is the reality. I had my editor count shots. There are 139 dance shots in the film. 111 are Natalie Portman untouched. 28 are her dance double Sarah Lane. If you do the math that’s 80 percent Natalie Portman. What about duration? The shots that feature the double are wide shots and rarely play for longer than one second. There are two complicated longer dance sequences that we used face replacement. Even so, if we were judging by time over 90% would be Natalie Portman. And to be clear Natalie did dance on pointe in pointe shoes. If you look at the final shot of the opening prologue, which lasts 85 seconds, and was danced completely by Natalie, she exits the scene on pointe. That is completely her without any digital magic. I am responding to this to put this to rest and to defend my actor. Natalie sweated long and hard to deliver a great physical and emotional performance. And I don’t want anyone to think that’s not her they are watching. It is.

We think this should end the controversy. It’s hard to believe that Aronofsky would make such specific claims (which could be easily countered) if they weren’t true.

It warmed the cockles of our heart to see Rick Baker take home his seventh Oscar. It’s not that he needs any more recognition. But we’re a bunch of Starlog/Fangoria kids who’ve been following Baker’s career for decades. And we feel invested. We also wanted to share a few factoids.

This is Baker’s seventh win. What are the six other films he won Oscars for?

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2001), Men in Black (1998), The Nutty Professor (1997), Ed Wood (1995), Harry and the Hendersons (1988), and An American Werewolf in London (1982).

Yup, Harry and the Hendersons is an Oscar wining film.

He lost five times. Those films were:

Norbit (2008); Life (2000); Mighty Joe Young (1999); Coming to America (1989); and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984).

And here’s a few films that he worked on that received no Oscar attention and probably should have:

King Kong (1976), Gorillas in the Mist (1988) , and Planet of the Apes (2001).

On the eve of the Oscars, the Independent Spirit Awards were held in sunny Santa Monica. And psychological horror film Black Swan took most of the major awards, winning Best Film, Best Director (Darren Aronofsky), Best Actress (Natalie Portman) and Best Cinematography (Matthew Libatique). This is a great sign for low budget genre cinema. And a reminder to filmmakers that you don’t need a big budget to make a big impact.

So a while back, a special effect reel from Black Swan started appearing on the web. It created a bit of controversy because it showed that Natalie Portman’s face had been put on another dancer’s body in some of the dancing sequences. We didn’t think much of this. She couldn’t dance en pointe. No big deal. What actress can?

But now the studio has not only removed many of these videos from the web. But they’ve allowed ones to remain that have the face and head replacements indications edited out. Like this one here. Or this one. And we think that is rather a big deal.

The stills accompanying this article are all from the original effects reel. We managed to snag a copy before it got removed.

According to E! Online, Natalie Portman has an interesting reason for taking on a role in the Thor:

I just thought it sounded like a really weird idea I just thought it sounded like a really weird idea ’cause Kenneth Branagh‘s directing it … And Ken Branagh doing Thor is super weird. I’ve got to do it.

Branagh is an odd chocie, but not so much when you remember the tone and battle scenes in his Henry V. We do think it’s weird that Portman is already calling Branagh “Ken”. He just doesn’t seem like a “Ken” to us.